Melvin Laird

Melvin Robert Laird Jr. (1 September 1922-16 November 2016) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-WI 7) from 3 January 1953 to 21 January 1969 (succeeding Reid F. Murray and preceding Dave Obey), US Secretary of Defense from 22 January 1969 to 29 January 1973 (succeeding Clark Clifford and preceding Elliot Richardson), and White House Domestic Affairs Advisor from 1 May 1973 to 8 January 1974 (succeeding John Ehrlichman and preceding Kenneth Reese Cole Jr.).

Biography
Melvin Laird was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1922, the son of Melvin R. Laird Sr., and he grew up in Marshfield, Wisconsin and Lake Forest, Illinois. He served as a US Navy junior officer in the Pacific from 1942 to 1946 during World War II, and he entered the Wisconsin State Senate at the age of 23 to succeed his father. He went on to serve in the US House of Representatives from 1953 to 1969, and he supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Republican primaries. He supported a strong defense posture and criticized President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's handling of the Vietnam War; in 1969, he was appointed Secretary of Defense by President Richard Nixon. He coined the expression "Vietnamization" to describe the gradual withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam and the training of South Vietnamese ARVN troops to continue the fight without the US presence. He also played a major role in Gerald Ford's selection as Vice President while serving as Domestic Affairs Advisor from 1973 to 1974. That same year, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He later played a key role in advancing medical research, and he died in 2016 at the age of 94.